Spotlight Cache Week of August 1, 2023: Are Mirage, Thanos, and Master Mold Worth It?

Welcome back to our new weekly series Cache-ing In! Each week, we break down what cards will be available in the new Spotlight Caches, as well as the Spotlight Variants! The goal is to help you determine if you should “Cache in” for the content, or hoard for a better week. This week, the featured cards will be the new card Mirage, Thanos, and Master Mold!

As a quick note, if you haven’t read the news yet, the developers have listened! The Mystery Series 4/5 duplicate reward has changed from a Premium Mystery Variant to 1,000 tokens!

Mirage

Thanos

Master Mold

Mirage

Variants

Mirage

On Reveal: Copy the lowest-Cost card in your opponent’s hand into your hand. Give it +2 Power.

Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Mirage

Being the last new card of the season, Mirage is truly a mystery to me. Is this a good card? Her ability “On Reveal: Copy the lowest-Cost card in your opponent’s hand into your hand. Give it +2 Power.” sounds great in theory! You play this card in decks like The Collector and Devil Dinosaur to boost their stats, while also gaining a little information on what cards your opponent is holding. Mirage seems like a cheaper White Queen, but you aren’t getting the information on their biggest card in hand, but rather the smaller card they haven’t used yet. You are, however, getting a card that has better stats than your opponent!

Imagine this for example: You can copy a 2/5 Jeff the Baby Land Shark, a 1/8 Demon, a 2/4 Spider-Ham, or even a free buffed card like Kitty Pryde if your opponent is playing Bounce! In theory this could be great, but you could also copy some cards that don’t synergize well with you. If your opponent is a discard or ramp deck, for example, you probably don’t need their cards.

With that said, I think this card is fighting for White Queen‘s slot in the Devil Dinosaur + The Collector decks. It is a better early game card and lends more flexibility if you need to play it. I think this card could potentially see play as well in Sera decks. Her lower power helps lose priority, but the buffed, low cost card can be a powerful turn 6 play when you dump your hand.

Overall, Mirage could be a solid card with some strong decks waiting on her. On the other hand, I don’t see this card creating new archetypes, so it will need to take the place of existing card slots and perform better than they do. Ultimately, I’m not sure if this card will be a staple in these decks, or a card that is fun for a week but you don’t keep it in meta decks. I would definitely keep an eye on the meta reports to see how good this card really is.

Big Hands Mirage

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

2

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Thanos

Variants

Thanos

Starts in your opening hand and shuffles the six Infinity Stones into your deck.

Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Thanos

Thanos is our latest Big Bad pull for the week. If you are a veteran to the game, you know this card is one of the best in the game. Control Thanos is the current tournament ruler, as the infinity stones give a lot of flexibility in matches despite adding to your deck size. While Thanos isn’t a card that you can throw into any deck and win, the decks he works in are all incredibly strong.

Thanos Control

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

1

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Recruit Season

3.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

A few of his other decks he shines in are Lockjaw Thanos, Destroy Thanos, and one of my favorites Junk Thanos. Each of these decks use the Infinity Stones in different ways, but it shows how versatile this card is. In theory adding so many cards to your deck makes the deck inconsistent, but in practice the stones are so powerful that you will often cycle though most of the cards in your deck anyways. If you don’t have Thanos in your collection yet, he is definitely worth it!

Thanos Destroy

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

1

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Master Mold

Variants

Master Mold

On Reveal: Add 2 Sentinel to your opponent’s hand.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Master Mold

Master Mold is our lackluster card for the week. His ability sounds menacing in theory, but it often does little to nothing to your opponent. Ideally, you want to use this card to prevent your opponent from drawing their cards, but the meta currently plays on tempo pretty regularly, so those 2 sentinels being stuck in their hand isn’t a huge deal. Also with The Collector and Devil Dinosaur being in the meta frequently, those Sentinels can actually be beneficial.

Despite Master Mold‘s flaws, there is a deck that is interested in this card. Ronan the Accuser decks benefit from him since he adds a semi-permanent +4 power to Ronan while trying to clog your opponent’s hand. Combine this with Black Widow and the Darkhawk package, your goal is to make their hand unplayable and their deck size larger. This deck isn’t very strong, but it is playable.

Ronan Darkhawk

Created by Peralta MG

, updated 10 months ago

0

ControlComboInfiniteCompetitiveMeta

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Unfortunately, Master Mold just isn’t a good card in his current state. With developers making changes to so many cards, and confirming on their Discord Q/A that they plan on buffing Spotlight features that aren’t the best, Master Mold may very well see a buff soon. However, I wouldn’t bank on that change being the reasoning for opening a cache.

The Variants

If you already own the card the Spotlight cache offers, one of these variants will take it’s place! If you own none of the cards, the variants will appear after you open all 4 caches. Spotlight variants are time exclusive to their release week, with no estimated time on when they will be available again. So if any of these Spotlight variants feel like a must have for you, make sure to Cache In if you have enough caches saved to guarantee the pull.

This Mirage variant comes from Justyna Dura, and appears to be a variant premier for the artist, with only 1 other unreleased variant to their name so far. If you are into unique art variants, this is a cool one for your collection!

Marko Djurdjević launches their Thanos variant this week! The artist currently has 2 more unreleased arts for Magneto and The Hood, making this another unique artist variant, and a premier for their artwork.

Eduardo Francisco is the artist for the new Master Mold variant. If this name is familiar, that’s because it is the same artist who made the Darkhawk Spotlight from last week’s, as well as the Colossus variant in the current season pass.

Should I Cache In?

This week is a little weaker than last week. Master Mold is currently the dud of the set, though we will see if he gets an adjustment with this week’s OTA. Mirage could be great in theory, but the card doesn’t seem to open any new avenues of play, so her power is yet to be proven. Thanos is the clear white whale of the set, though being the OG Big Bad, many players likely already have purchased him.

This week, I have to split my recommendation again. If you do not own Thanos, I recommend Cache-ing In if you have 4 caches saved. Thanos is a great pull and is a permanent Series 5 (so a good investment). Mirage may or may not be a good card, but is worth a cache if you are looking for Thanos. With a 50% positive pull rate, it makes this week worth opening.

If you already own Thanos, I recommend Hoarding Your Caches. Mirage is launching as a Series 4 card, which means she is only 3,000 Collector’s Tokens. And with her being the only other card worth pulling, the 25% chance isn’t worth the caches. If you aren’t sure if she is worth 3,000, wait until the Weekend Challenge Missions to get her. She may see a Legion payout of 500 or more tokens for using her, which makes her a great deal for purchasing.

If Master Mold sees an update that makes him playable, it may make this week a solid Cache In week. Until we actually see this update, however, these are my recommendations.

Do you think Mirage will be a good card? Will you be Cache-ing In this week? Let us know in the comments! For the full schedule, check out our guide below: